The REACHE Project

"Finally! A fossil that will clear up some things."

REACHE - Research﻿ on East African Catarrhine and Hominoid Evolution - is a multi-national, multi-disciplinary collaboration to further our knowledge of monkey and ape evolution documented in the East African fossil record of the early Miocene (23 - 16 million years ago). ​The project was founded on the premise that collaborative research stands a better chance of illuminating the complex evolutionary dynamics of Africa's early Miocene than do a series of small independent research projects. The early Miocene of East Africa offers the best opportunity for deciphering the adaptive significance of key features in human ancestry, but significant progress will only be made by connecting individual discoveries within a well-defined regional framework. Initially and currently funded through generous grants from the National Science Foundation, REACHE has become an ongoing research network rather than a discrete project. More than 20 scientists are directly associated with current REACHE projects, and dozens more are helping to analyze the material and data that result from this work.

The overarching research questions of the REACHE project are:

What types of habitats were preferred by our early ape ancestors and their contemporaries? How did these habitats change across the East African region and through time?

How do emerging adaptations among fossil ape species relate to environmental differences?

How does the adaptive evolution of early Miocene apes and their relatives inform our understanding of later ape evolution and the origin of the human lineage?

The REACHE team is actively engaged in coordinated paleontological and geological fieldwork using shared, rigorous protocols at more than twenty fossil localities across Kenya and Uganda. From the results of the field projects, we are conducting geologic, taphonomic and paleoecological analyses to produce a highly resolved and chronologically calibrated regional model of East African biological evolution during the early Miocene. REACHE members are also committed to service through our research, and the project already has a number of undergraduate and graduate students receiving training as members of our teams. The National Museums of Kenya and the Uganda National Museum are active scientific collaborators in this work, and part of our mission is to help train East African students in the natural sciences. Visit our OutREACHE page for more information on our service activities.

To learn more about the many components of the REACHE network, please browse this website, or contact us.